The Asteroid/Comet Connection's
daily news journal about
asteroids, comets, and meteors

Today's issue status: done

• Small objects – report for 3-9 May
  Observation summary
• Risk monitoring

Cover: Last week's most observed small object was 2004 HX53, picked up optically on multiple days, and also reported by radar from the previous week. At left, it is seen as caught by Great Shefford Observatory in England on the 6th. It moved 13'36" while 96 eight-second exposures were made during 2111-2144 UT, so the star trails are longer than can fit in the cropped frame seen here twice-size.

Small objects
Discovery & follow-up 3-9 May

There are currently 554 near-Earth asteroids listed by the Minor Planet Center and/or JPL with absolute magnitude (brightness) calculated at H greater than 22.0, which roughly converts to a diameter of 135 meters/yards or less. And, despite the full Moon at mid-week, eight of these dim objects were reported as followed by ten observing facilities since last Sunday, as publicly reported through this morning, led by Siding Spring in Australia and Tenagra II Observatory in Arizona. Also reported this week were observations from April for four others. Only one asteroid discovery was announced all week, and it was a small one, 2004 JB, found with the Spacewatch 1.8m telescope in Arizona on May 1st.

The most watched small object was 2004 HX53, and this week it was also reported that Arecibo in Puerto Rico had caught it with radar last week (Friday and Saturday). It made the closest known small object flyby last week, at 12.4 lunar distances Friday.

One of the week's most interesting small object catches was of 2004 HG12. Erich Meyer took advantage of the lunar eclipse to nail 7.604 days onto what had been a 6.049-day observing arc. See the May 5th "cover" for more about that.

No small object close flybys are predicted for next week or, for that matter, for the next month and a half.

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Notes: Diameters in the following observation summary table are rough best estimates from a standard but very inexact H-to-size formula using H (absolute magnitude) from the JPL NEO Orbital Elements page, source also for Earth MOID (minimum orbital intersection). Other planetary MOIDs are from Lowell Observatory (last updated May 7th). Current Minor Planet Center H is also given, along with the original H from each object's discovery MPEC. Priorities and visibilities are from the European Spaceguard Central Node (SCN), from which the last data was available May 7th.

Risk monitoring 9 May

No objects with impact solutions are reported in the Sunday Daily Orbit Update MPEC, but the Minor Planet Center Last Observation page is showing that 2004 HM was caught with the Spacewatch 1.8m telescope in Arizona this morning.